Cristiano Ronaldo won his second FIFA Ballon d’Or award last Monday and it’s just another reason why he is one of the greatest soccer players to ever play the game. I personally think that Lionel Messi has the potential to be the greatest ever, but Ronaldo is making him work for it. Let’s review on some of Ronaldo’s achievements:
He holds the Real Madrid record for most goals scored in one La Liga season (46). Ronaldo scored 40 in 2010-11 and then he broke the record the very next season scoring 46. That made him the first European leage player to reach 40 goals in two consecutive seasons. He would finish the 2011-12 season with 60 total goals. He is also the fastest player to reach 200 goals in Real Madrid history. Not only that, but he is also Portugal’s all-time top scorer with 47 international goals. For the La Liga, he is the first player to score a goal against every team in the league in a single season. Then he also holds the world record as the most expensive player in the world. When he was transferred from Manchester United to Real Madrid, the transfer was worth 80 million euros (that’s $131.6 million). The best part about all of this is that he is only 28 years old (he turns 29 on February 5th). That shows that he still has many more years left ahead of him. Now after saying all that, I’m going to compare him to Lionel Messi:
Messi holds the record for most Ballon d’Or awards with 4. He holds the record more scoring the most goals in La Liga history with 50 in one year (2011-12). He is also the top scorer in La Liga history with 223 goals. Messi is also younger than Ronaldo at 26.
So who is the better player? I go with Messi all the way, but that shouldn’t overshadow Ronaldo’s fantastic career. Everyone knew that he was going to be a special player after that 2006-07 season with Manchester United. Could Ronaldo catch up to Messi’s success? You just never know.
The Basket Foot 